Inter-institutional Course Research Articles

Before their very eyes: Enhancing the (pre)literacy skills of deaf children

Abstract: The challenge of supporting literacy among deaf children is as much linguistic as educational, since a major stumbling block can be the lack of a firm first language foundation. It is critical to meet this challenge, given the range of serious negative correlates to illiteracy. Students on the campuses of Gallaudet University and Swarthmore College collaborate to address this issue in an inter-institutional course in which we make bimodal-bilingual videobooks designed for enjoyable shared reading activities between deaf children and their caretakers. These videobooks bring a good signing model into the home and help develop a range of essential preliteracy skills.

Building interprofessional and interinstitutional bridges in health care education.

In Germany, most health professionals are trained at different universities and training institutions outside of medical faculties. Rigid curricular and institutional training regulations make it difficult for students in health professions to network and to learn with, from and about each other. The possibilities that online learning offers for the teaching of collaborative activities in health care are still not being fully utilised. Online teaching can provide a bridge to enable learning with and about each other in diverse educational settings. Thus, online teaching to facilitate interprofessional collaborative activities and patient-centred communication appears to be a promising approach. We transformed an established interprofessional case discussion course1 into an online teaching format where medical and nursing students from two different German universities could learn together despite site-specific, curricular and current pandemic-related challenges. FINCO online (fostering interprofessional communication) was offered as a voluntary interinstitutional course. The online format comprised five synchronous teaching sessions and was taught by an interprofessional tandem, consisting of a physician and a nurse. About 20 students participated per session. Each session lasted 2 h and was concluded by a simulated telemedical visit with standardised patients (SPs). The learning objective was to jointly develop a care plan and to prepare the students for their future collaborative work and its requirements. Medical and nursing students communicated their joint care plan and could thus apply and improve their team- and patient-communication skills. Additional to the facilitator tandem, each interprofessional student dyad was supervised by another experienced nurse and clinician who gave feedback on the process and the patient-centred communication. Structured feedback on the joint performance was also provided by the SPs. The conferencing tool Zoom served as a common learning space. Evaluation results from two digital implementation rounds (n = 55) in the winter term 2020/21 suggest that FINCO online promotes all processes of interprofessional observable collaborative activities. The students successfully conducted interprofessional case discussions online. During case discussions, they were sharing and negotiating profession-specific information and perspectives, as well as developing common care goals. The students appreciated the digital use of SPs and the possibility to apply the acquired knowledge directly within an interprofessional telemedical visit. They highlighted the direct patient feedback as particularly conducive to learning. The independence of locations and the digital small-group setting in breakout rooms, which would not have been available in a traditional classroom setting, proved to be advantages of the online learning environment. The ‘room selection’ feature of the conferencing tool expanded the didactic planning options of the facilitators in order to conduct practical exercise units in small groups. Additionally, the tandem-teaching was supported by pre-defining the teaching roles ‘technical supporter’ and ‘facilitator’. This enabled the tandems to focus on the seminar process. Teachers switched between roles several times throughout the seminar. Accompanying empirical research will help to determine to which extent FINCO online can promote interprofessional collaborative activities in patient care between health professions and how it can further be improved. The project is funded by the Medical Faculty of LMU Munich.

Fostering Inclusion through an Interinstitutional, Community-Engaged, Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience.

Creation of an inclusive environment requires a culture of equity, justice, value and respect for diverse backgrounds, and opportunities for students to engage with communities while addressing issues in science and society. These tasks are particularly challenging for institutions lacking a diverse population. Here, we demonstrate evidence of a successful model for creating an inclusive environment in an interinstitutional course between a large, public, historically black institution and a small, private, primarily white institution. Because many individuals from underrepresented minority groups tend to value communal goals of working together and helping their communities, we incorporated two high-impact practices of community-engaged learning and course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) focused on health disparities research in neighboring communities. Although the research projects varied each semester, they were linked by their impact on and engagement with the community. Students practiced cultural competency skills in both small group projects within the class and engagement activities in the community. We measured the efficacy of CURE components (novel authentic research, scientific process skills, iteration, collaboration, and broader impact) through a combination of direct and indirect assessments, quantitative and qualitative analysis. More than simply scientific skills, students from both institutions developed lasting interest in working with diverse populations as well as respecting and valuing different backgrounds. This inclusive environment, combined with increased interest in research, suggests that this course could potentially serve as a model for interinstitutional collaborations in creating inclusive environments that support the future success of diverse students, eventually changing the STEM research culture.

Towards a response-able pedagogy across higher education institutions in post-apartheid South Africa: an ethico-political analysis

Internationally there has been some interest in how critical pedagogies might be enabled in higher education to support transformative social agendas. Few writers, however, have theorised the ethico-political aspects of this effort from a feminist new materialist perspective. By focusing on the analysis of an inter-institutional collaborative course which was constructed across three disciplines and two differently positioned universities in Cape Town, South Africa, this paper examines the design of the course retrospectively from a feminist new materialist theoretical framing. In so doing, it moves beyond more traditional understandings of critical pedagogy to consider the design and student engagement with the course from the perspective of what we call “response-able pedagogies.” Response-able pedagogies are not simply examples of the type of learning that can take place when power relations, materiality and entanglement are acknowledged; they also constitute ethico-political practices that incorporate a relational ontology into teaching and learning activities. We propose that ethico-political practices such as attentiveness, responsibility, curiosity, and rendering each other capable, constitute reponse-able pedagogies. The paper focuses on the transdisciplinary and interinstitutional course to consider how these ethico-political practices which constitute a response-able pedagogy might (be put to) work and how the students were both enabled and constrained by this design in terms of their responses to such ethico-political practices.

Didactic and experiential interprofessional, inter-institutional courses at a private college of pharmacy

Creating opportunities for students of multiple health professions to achieve the interprofessional competencies is critical to prepare them to enter the health care system and provide effective team-based care. Challenges can be experienced by any health profession school when establishing these opportunities; independent, private schools with limited health profession degrees may experience even greater difficulty. As an independent, private college, St. Louis College of Pharmacy (STLCOP) has successfully created interprofessional courses with three neighboring schools. In Interprofessional Team Seminar (IPTS), students participate in an interprofessional experience at St. Louis University (SLU) as part of the required Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience in professional year (PY)-3. SLU students enrolled in medicine, nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, social work, and physician assistant programs join with STLCOP student pharmacists to discuss patient cases with an emphasis on patient safety, prioritizing goals, and teamwork. An elective course, “Indigent Populations: Focus on Health Literacy” is co-coordinated with Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) and Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes-Jewish College (GSN) faculty and allows PY-2 and PY-3 student pharmacists to work collaboratively with students from GSN to serve the homeless in the city. The aim is to describe lessons learned and share strategies for successful interprofessional education design and implementation among similar institutions.

Development of the AG*IDEA Alliance's Horticulture Graduate Certificates Program and Inter-institutional Course Share

A s times change, so must education change—particularly its availability. Gone are classes taught solely in a traditional lecture style with the professor pontificating to a group of 18to 22-year-old students. The advent of the Internet, smart phones, and electronic book readers, coupled with technology-hungry and savvy consumers, has led to a significant change in the ways courses are delivered. Information—accurate and inaccurate—is available with a few key strokes. These advances in technology, coupled with an economic downturn and a reduction in university teaching resources, have made it clear that the teaching paradigm must shift. To attract students and still deliver a quality education in horticulture, expertise and resources must be shared across institutions. The Agriculture Interactive Distance Education Alliance (2011) (AG*IDEA) provides shared access to undergraduate and graduate level courses in horticulture and related disciplines for students enrolled through the member universities. The alliance also provides the opportunity for students to pursue three graduate certificates in horticulture. In this way, current students as well as industry members and others have the opportunity for lifelong learning in horticulture via distance. Graduate level distance courses in horticulture have been shared and offered across institutions since the late 1990s (Great Plains Interactive Distance Alliance, 2011; Williams and Paparozzi, 2002). Only recently has demand significantly increased, resulting in the formation of inter-institutional collaborations. During the last 2 years, representatives from several universities have been meeting monthly to develop horticulture graduate certificates through AG*IDEA. AG*IDEA is the agricultural arm of the Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance (GP*IDEA). GP*IDEA was formed by the human sciences colleges located in the Great Plains region of the United States. Later, an alliance for agriculture was initiated by Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa. This alliance joined GP*IDEA, expanded membership beyond the Great Plains region, and chose the moniker of AG*IDEA. Agriculture joined this group because of the belief in the common founding principles. These principles state that all institutions will behave as equals, respect institutionaldifferences, andsimplify student navigation to access courses and certificate/degree programs. Institutions pay a one-time fee of $2000 to belong; these funds support the overall project coordinator. The current composition of AG*IDEA includes 18 universities with full membership from all regions of the United States. Over the monthly conference calls of our horticulture group, attendance has varied in composition, but a core group has arisen from that interaction. This core group includes: University of NebraskaLincoln, Kansas State University, Texas Tech University, North Carolina State University, IowaStateUniversity,University of Kentucky, and North Dakota State University. The faculty chairperson of the group is drawn from these universities. This individual serves a 1-year rotating term. Within this group, faculty members had different reasons for participating. For some, it was curiosity, for some coercion. For others, it was the promised monetary reward for teaching distance courses (75% of tuition revenue returns to the home institution) and others sought to supplement undergraduate and graduate courses and curricular offerings. Tuition is set by AG*IDEA and is currently $440 per credit regardless of which institution the student chooses to enroll in and where the student resides. Today, horticulturists and horticulture programs cannot be all things to all people. So, common among all participants is the belief that the structure of current and futurehorticulture educational programs needs to change. Literature strongly Symposium Proceedings

Quality of faculty, students, curriculum and resources for nursing doctoral education in Korea: A focus group study

Background The rapidly increasing number of nursing doctoral programs has caused concern about the quality of nursing doctoral education, including in Korea. Objectives To describe the perceived quality of Korean nursing doctoral education in faculty, student, curriculum and resources. Design Focus group. Settings Fourteen Korean nursing doctoral programs that are research focused and include coursework. Participants Four groups of deans, faculty, students and graduates; students completed three semesters of doctoral program; and graduates completed doctoral programs within the most recent 3 years. Methods Focus groups examined the strengths and weaknesses of faculty, students, curriculum, and resources. Results Faculty strengths were universities’ recognition of faculty research/scholarship and the ability of faculty to attract extramural funding. Faculty weaknesses were aging faculty; high faculty workload; insufficient number of faculty; and teaching without expertise in nursing theories. Student strengths were diverse student backgrounds; multidisciplinary dissertation committee members, and opportunities to socialize with peers and graduates/faculty. Students’ weaknesses were overproduction of PhDs with low academic quality; a lower number and quality of doctoral applicants; and lack of full-time students. Curriculum strengths were focusing on specific research areas; emphasis on research ethics; and multidisciplinary courses. Curriculum weaknesses were insufficient time for curriculum development; inadequate courses for core research competencies; and a lack of linkage between theory and practice. Resources strengths were inter-institutional courses with credit transfer. Weaknesses were diminished university financial support for graduate students and limited access to school facilities. Variations in participant groups (providers [deans and faculty] vs. receivers [students and graduates]) and geographical location (capital city vs. regional) were noted on all the four components. Conclusions The quality characteristics of faculty, students, curriculum, and resources identified in this first systematic evaluation of the quality of nursing doctoral education can inform nursing schools, universities, and policy-makers about areas for improvement in Korea and possibly in the world. Geographical variations found in these four components of doctoral education warrant attention by policy-makers in Korea.

La construcción del hábitat hoy: Desafíos para la formación de recursos humanos especializados y comprometidos

One of the goals of the staff of the Interdisciplinary and interinstitutional course of Social Habitat, Santa Fe, is the formation of specialized human resources to participate in the topics dealing with habitat. This is done from a methodological point of view where the interdiscpline, the dialogue between the different actors and source of knowledge are essential to the path to follow in order to achieve propositions to tackle these problems. If we take a quick look at the demands, the interests and the needs which the professionals claim in order to approach the problems of habitat, we find that these look like a profile for the different professionals that are needed. Sectors or actors demanding professionals to intervene the social habitat: enterprises, government (to carry out programs), NGOS, base social organizations, the common citizen. If we add to this mixture our intention to generate a space for the formation of human resources to intervene the social space from a complex and integral point of view which demands the production of new knowledge and tools created from a interdisciplinary and critic point of view, we are faced then with new challenges like incorporating new actors to participate in the dialogue for the construction of strategies.

International E-learning Specifications

A previous report in this series discussed the classification of online course delivery systems according to the Advanced Distributed Learning Partnerships (ADL), and the international standards accepted by the ADL. The standardisation of courseware in this manner is necessary for the development of inter-institutional course sharing and quality control. The present report gives further definitions of the criteria applied by international standards organisations, and lists the principal specifications/ standards bodies now in operation.

Teaching inter-institutional courses (panel session)

Teaching inter-institutional courses (panel session)